“She’s the Best One Out There”

The protagonists in The Sandlot (1993) volley insults with the rich kids from the neighboring town.

“You eat dog crap for breakfast, geek.”

“You mix your Wheaties with your mama’s toe jam!”

As the exchange escalates, Ham’s final diss is the irrevocable pinnacle.

“You play ball like a GIRL!”

Both sides fall silent, stunned. Their jaws hit the ground.

“What did you say?” the opponent stammers, holding back tears.

“You heard me.”

It’s the ultimate insult; there is no retort.

While most family-friendly sports films of the 90s don’t feature this kind of outright sexism, most are largely by, for, and about boys. We see male characters on the field winning championships, while the women and girls, positioned as mothers, sisters, and love interests, cheer from the stands.

Yet upon re-watching three kid-friendly sports classics—The Little Giants (1994), D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994), and Rookie of the Year (1993)—I noticed something: several instances where, in crucial moments, female characters swoop in and, through courage, cunning, and skill, save the day.

Another movie of the era, A League of Their Own (1992), about the first all-female baseball league, tackles gender equality head-on. But in the male-dominated Little Giants, D2, and Rookie of the Year, the feminist themes are unexpected, even subversive.

Where do these characters and moments show up, and why? Let’s circle back to these three films and explore their feminist overtones, from the most predictable to the least.

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

The Little Giants

“She’s the best one out there”

Becky “The Icebox” O’Shea (Shawna Waldron) is the Billie Jean King of peewee football; she wages a Battle of the Sexes for the entire movie.

“She’s the best one out there,” applauds her aunt when we’re introduced to Icebox.

Everyone acknowledges this fact, and because of it, Icebox is the subject of condescension and disrespect from all parties: her opponents (“Do you pee standing up?”), her teammates (“Spike doesn’t play with girls”), and even her uncle, the opposing team’s coach (“Girls can’t play football”).

Icebox also struggles with the complexity of her burgeoning sexuality and femininity, and the way they affect her feelings, her relationships, and her identity as a tough, tomboyish star on the gridiron. The dissonance is visceral: After a moment of hopeless pining over her new, dreamy teammate, Junior Floyd (Devon Sawa), she gathers herself: “I’m the Icebox. The Icebox doesn’t get crushes.”

In the end, Icebox emerges a winner, both on the field and off. With Junior sidelined by injury and her team on the brink of defeat, Icebox ditches her pom poms, scoots to the locker room, and returns to the field donning her football pads on top and her cheerleading skirt on the bottom.

She makes the game-saving tackle, secures the win for her all-male team and her father, the coach, and learns to embrace her own duality as a hardnosed linebacker and a heterosexual young woman. Her vindication is entertaining and inspiring. It’s also predictable. Not the case with another classic of the era, D2: The Mighty Ducks.

Courtesy of Avnet/Kerner Productions and Walt Disney Pictures

D2: The Mighty Ducks

“When am I going to get my chance?”:

In The Little Giants, Becky is the best, and she spends the entire movie proving that to doubters, trolls, and herself. D2’s Julie “The Cat” Gaffney (Colombe Jacobsen), meanwhile, is the best goalie on the team, yet spends the entire film lobbying for the mere chance to play.

In this sequel to The Mighty Ducks (1992), the original Ducks are joined by star players from around the country to form Team USA and compete in the Junior Goodwill Games.

The Ducks’ goalie, Greg Goldberg (Shaun Weiss), is, for some reason, deemed starter for the squad despite his reputation as a clumsy goofball and his rhetorical use as comic relief.

At the team’s opening practice, the original Ducks are introduced to their new teammates.

“There’s Julie ‘The Cat’ Gaffney,” announces the team’s sponsor. “She won the state championship for Maine three years in a row.”

Back to Julie, who saves four consecutive shots from point-blank range. Coach Bombay’s conclusion?

“Well, we could use a backup.”

Except, apparently not. Team USA wins their first two games by a landslide, 21-2, yet Julie sees no ice time. After the game, she visits Bombay in his office.

JULIE: I want to play. When am I going to get my chance?

BOMBAY: Julie, Goldberg’s on a hot streak. I’ve gotta stick with him as long as we’re winning.

JULIE: I understand. But I left my team in Maine to show the world what I can do.

BOMBAY: Give it time. You will show the world. I promise.

In their next game, after the team falls behind to 5-0 to Iceland, Bombay subs Julie in.

“Send in a woman to do a man’s job…” one Iceland player taunts her.

“Don’t break a nail,” another mocks. They laugh.

Julie turns to the punks.

“I’m sorry, boys. Can you help me with my pads?”

As they look down, Julie delivers a sucker punch. The goons fall to the ice, and Julie is ejected.

“See you around, fellas,” she quips.

Goldberg returns; Team USA falls 12-1.

From there, Julie is practically silent, save one line amid a tense moment when several players decide they’re too tired to practice.

“It’s not like we couldn’t use the conditioning,” she says.

“Speak for yourself, babe,” Portman sneers.

Julie, the three-time state champion, who’s traveled across the country for a chance she’s earned but not granted, is jeered by her opponents, insulted by her teammates, and written off by her coach. She’s relegated to the bench and, in the script, to near silence; in subsequent games, she sees almost no time onscreen and zero time on the ice.

Everyone, including the audience, is made to passively accept this; even I, the discerning and repeated and, now, adult viewer would’ve likely forgotten her if not for the movie’s final, dramatic moments.

In the championship game, a rematch against Iceland, the US falls down by four goals but claws its way back to even as time expires. In the shootout, Team USA pulls ahead by one goal, and the world title comes down to a single shot. With the championship on the line, Bombay kneels on the bench behind his unused, underestimated, overqualified secret weapon.

BOMBAY: Julie, you got the fast glove. I know this kid’s move. Triple deke, glove side. Anticipate it and you got him.

JULIE: What if he goes stick side?

BOMBAY: He’s fancy. He’ll go glove. Don’t hesitate. Let’s go.

With the world looking on, Julie skates onto the ice, fearless.

ANNOUNCER: I don’t know about this move by Bombay. Putting in a cold goaltender to face the leading scorer in the tournament. But hang on to your hats. Here we go. If Julie “The Cat’ “Gaffney stops Gunnar Stahl, the U.S.A. wins.

SPOILER ALERT: She does and they do. Julie saves the shot and the game; she shows the world what she can do, what she’s been able to do all along.

Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

Rookie of the Year (1993)

“Mom, it was you?”

There’s a riddle I saw on a rerun of an October 1972 episode of All in the Family. The riddle popped up again recently on the BBC and still manages to stump folks a half-century later.

A father and son have a car accident and are both badly hurt. They are both taken to separate hospitals. When the boy is taken in for an operation, the surgeon says, “I can not do the surgery because this is my son.” How is this possible?

Rookie of the Year, a movie almost exclusively about boys and men, is the baseball adaptation of this riddle.

“Hey! Wait, wait!”

Mary Rowengartner (Amy Morton) calls after her son Henry (Thomas Ian Nicholas) as he and his friends run off to their Little League game.

“Sun block!” she says, and tosses the bottle, underhand, towards Henry. A piccolo flutters in the background, signaling beauty and magic, as the sunscreen soars through the air—and over the head of Henry, who’s badly misjudged its trajectory.

Henry later returns home from the game where he put on a humiliating performance as an outfielder. He’s downtrodden, but Mary offers encouragement.

“Maybe you should be a pitcher like your father was,” the single mother suggests.

Her words and Henry’s pedigree prove prophetic: While trying to impress his crush (who, coincidentally, is played by Colombe “Julie ‘The Cat’ Gaffney” Jacobsen), Henry slips on a baseball and breaks his arm. Combine a miraculous occurrence with some pseudoscience and the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief, and you’ve got yourself a movie!

Henry’s tendons “heal too tight,” according to his doctor, and the teenager is blessed with a supernatural arm, freakishly strong and accurate enough for him to—better believe it!—secure a roster slot with the Chicago Cubs.

Cut to the airport: Henry and the team prep to depart for his first road game.

Again: “Sunscreen!” Mary calls out, tossing the bottle across the airport—there’s the piccolo!—right to Henry, who this time hauls it in.

“Hey, your mom has a pretty good arm!” exclaims Brickma, the Cubs’ pitching coach. “I ain’t seen the floater pitch since Scuffy McGee!”

Fast forward: Henry has emerged as a superstar and beloved celebrity, but off the field, villainy lurks: Jack, who’s dubbed himself Henry’s “manager,” is trying to trade him to the Yankees for $20 million, and dupes Mary into signing off on the deal.

Mary’s had enough. She punches Jack directly in the face, and he tumbles out of the house and down the front stairs.

“All right, Mom!” Henry triumphs.

“My god, that felt really good,” Mary exhales, embracing Henry.

Gathering herself, she sits him down for a heart-to-heart.

MARY: Your father…Okay. When I was a teenager—

HENRY: Mom. I know about dad…I know that he left you when you were pregnant with me.

MARY: How did you know that?

HENRY: Grandma told me when I was in second grade.

MARY: Why didn’t you tell me?

HENRY: Because I thought you liked telling me stories about him. About how he was a great baseball player and all.

MARY: Henry, I’m sorry. I just wanted you to have someone you could look up to.

HENRY: I do.

Soon we’re in the league championship game, where Henry is on the mound and a single inning away from sending the Cubs to their first World Series since WWII.

Things are swimming along, until—what’s this?—Henry slips on another ball and—say it ain’t so!—loses his power. Suddenly his superhuman strength is gone, and he’s a hapless teenager once again.

Without his 100 mph fastball, Henry leans on chicanery and beguiles the Mets into two outs. On the next at-bat, Henry needs just one strike to seal the game, but he’s facing the Mets’ toughest, meanest hitter.

As the drama and the music crescendo, Henry winds up and, in slow motion, lofts an underhanded pitch toward the plate. The Mets slugger whiffs wildly. Strike three. Game over. Cubs win.

As in D2, the characters and the audience alike are made to underestimate Mary, to push her aside as, at most, a cool mom. When she punches her conniving boyfriend through the door, it feels surprising but feasible. But to think she was the legendary pitcher who becomes the hero who bails out her son, his team, and the entire city of Chicago, rallying them from the brink of defeat to their first pennant in 50 years? Impossible. Until it wasn’t.

In these movies, the female characters, when not blatantly marginalized, seem relegated to insignificance. But in the end, they’re the key to the plot and to victory: without Julie, who knows if Team USA wins. Without Mary, Henry likely gives up a homer, the Cubs lose, and the misery of the franchise and the city continue in perpetuity. Without Icebox, there is no movie.

A film like A League of Their Own, catered towards both male and female audiences, is designed to address feminism and equality in sports and in life. But in Little Giants and especially in D2 and Rookie of the Year, movies that seem targeted at young boys, feminist themes infiltrate the male-dominated universe and subversively force characters and viewers to challenge their own assumptions about the role of women and girls in sports, in movies, and at the intersection of the two.

It’s no surprise that the following years produced female-driven family-friendly sports movies like Double Teamed (2002) and She’s the Man (2006), not to mention sports films centered on women of color, including Eddie (1996), Love & Basketball (2000), and Bend it Like Beckham (2002).

So, “you play ball like a GIRL!”? Yeah, if you want to win.

Ben Kassoy

Ben Kassoy has written for the websites of Elle, GQ, Women’s Health, Teen Vogue, Glamour, Maxim, Details, and a host of others. He is also the Editor-in-chief of DoSomething.org and the coauthor of eight books.

Justin Etkin

1 month

I think Hollywood had successfully picked up on a theme that was sweeping the country in the early to mid 90s: there were more girls playing sports at this point in history than ever before. And boys all over the country were growing up in a world where girls were not only playing the same sports as them, but often surpassing their athleticism by leaps and bounds. Almost all team sports in the 8-11 age range were co-ed: youth soccer in the spring, basketball in the winter, and fall ball in the fall. Every one of these seasons presented opportunities for boys to realize their inferiority to the faster maturing, confident female counterparts.

I don’t know about you Ben, but there was nothing more attractive to me as a 8 – 11 year old than a girl that was better than me at sports. How could we forget about Jessica, my first crush. She was a faster sprinter than me, could do more pullups than me, and had a better mile time than me. And I was head over heels for her. 8 – 11 year old boys have a funny way of expressing affection, though. I typically went the taunting and mockery route, a defense mechanism developed to preserve my fragile sense of self in those troubling years. Pre-pubescent me was just too darn confused to know how to handle this conundrum: I love the girl that’s better than me at sports, but I hate the fact that she’s better than me at sports. A real doozy, that one.

In D2: Mighty Ducks we certainly see the boys confronting the same struggle as my younger self. Goldberg, in particular, appears threatened that Julie will take his spot, but also undoubtedly attracted to her skill between the sticks. Hollywood recognized how many young boys out there were attempting to balance their athletic confidence and psychological vulnerability, and gave that internal strife a face. It belonged to Julie “The Cat”. She was athletic, confident, and beautiful and made the boys question a lot about themselves.

Shifting to one of the all time great soccer movies, She’s The Man (side note: Amanda Bynes manages to pull some outrageously baller shit in the movie on the field). Here’s an example of a girl confused about her representation of self. She’s clearly got game, but will her crush like her if she beats his ass in soccer? This question alone shows how the role of women has progressed in sports. Now, it isn’t surprising that girls can beat boys at the same game, we’ve all seen enough of that in our lives for it to be fairly believable (although even Messi wouldn’t stand a chance against the superhuman talents of Amanda Bynes). The new theme centers around how should girls balance their love and skill in sports with society’s perception of what men want in a female partner. That’s some pretty serious cultural development over 10 years.

Ben Kassoy

1 month

Thanks so much for this dynamite response. Because I think in bulleted lists:

“I think Hollywood had successfully picked up on a theme that was sweeping the country in the early to mid 90s: there were more girls playing sports at this point in history than ever before.”

_Totally! And not just at the little league levels: the WNBA started in 1996, Mia Hamm was one of the most famous athletes on the planet, and the US Women’s National Team took home the World Cup in dramatic fashion (hello, Brandi Chastain in 1999)._

“I love the girl that’s better than me at sports, but I hate the fact that she’s better than me at sports. A real doozy, that one.”

“Goldberg, in particular, appears threatened that Julie will take his spot, but also undoubtedly attracted to her skill between the sticks.”

_How much do you think Goldberg shows that and how much do we, the viewer, project ourselves onto him? It’s interesting that they don’t say much about Goldberg’s relationship with her, which seems kind of cordial? One semi-related thing I’ll never understand: Connie and Gui are the hot couple throughout. But then their relationship kind of disappears throughout the movie, and in the championship game when Connie is about to be bulldozed by an Iceland goon, it’s Dwayne who hops off the bench and lassos him down, saving Connie. Where is Gui during all this? And what’s the story with Dwayne and Connie?

“The new theme centers around how should girls balance their love and skill in sports with society’s perception of what men want in a female partner. That’s some pretty serious cultural development over 10 years.”

_Great point. And great movie, too! We definitely see that in Little Giants and, because the kids are older/more mature, even more of that in She’s the Man. I first watched the movie in college for a Shakespeare class; it’s a modern take on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which, beyond tackling gender roles, takes a really deep dive into identity, sexuality, and queer relationships. In both the movie and the play, there are innumerable layers of gender and sexuality: girls pretend to be boys, boys are attracted to girls pretending to be boys, girls are “transitioning” from boy to girl and then back to boy. (Also, there’s another layer, because in Shakespeare’s day, all the girl parts were played by boys, so you have boys pretending to be girls pretending to be boys who are liked by men pretending to be boys.) It is queer and perverse and fun and welp, I think I’ve got my topic for the next story.

David Gern

1 month

Great read Ben! So many powerful points and totally agree with Justin on being attracted to girls who were better than me at sports. Even a general interest in sports is an incredibly attractive trait. Sadly, I think men too often view women who have such qualities as manly or unattractive. They will accept and revel in their friendship but often nothing more. In fact, women who are physically strong and athletically gifted are seen as enemies rather than allies. Ben cites an example that perfectly captures this when the Iceland players in D2 inform Julie the Cat that they’ve sent “a woman to do a man’s job…don’t break a nail.” Their fear is palpable. They wouldn’t feel the need to trash-talk and intimidate if they didn’t see Julie as a legitimate threat who must be held in check. I myself am comfortable knowing that there are so many women who are physically stronger than me and more athletically gifted. My own girlfriend will absolutely smoke me in any race that is more than a mile. Some men might think that if a girl is better at sports than them, their manhood is diminished.

I understand that both men and women are quick to ascribe traditional gender roles in which men are bigger and stronger. And while that may be scientifically more common, that shouldn’t render the notion of a stronger and more athletic woman taboo. But I think men show tremendous insecurity and weakness when they deny that women can be just as capable when it comes to sports or any other aspect of life. It’s dangerous to automatically associate femininity with daintiness and masculinity with physical size and strength. After all, I would argue that in some way, we all fall short of these traditional gender roles. For instance, Ben is a phenomenal dancer and I’m a pretty strong hula-hooper which are both typically skills that society attributes to women. I also know women who have a very high alcohol tolerance and are great athletes. Does that really make them manly?

I also wonder whether the message of the above movies–that women and girls should be on an equal playing field when it comes to sports– is clouded by the fact that the female characters are attractive. Would we still root for these women and girls if they were overweight? I think many movies tend to cast unrelatably attractive actresses (and actors). And as Ben observantly points out, too often films portray these same attractive women within the framework of their relationship to men as “mothers, sisters, and love interests.” I think this does a disservice to women who, regardless of attractiveness, have a dignity and a value that is equal to and independent of any man.

One other great film example that finds the intersection of sports and feminism is Remember the Titans (I know I used this movie as an example in my last post but it’s just so good). Like many of the characters in the above movies, Sheryl Yoast is a female character who is able to influence the outcome of a male-dominated sport. She is the daughter of the team’s assistant coach who towards the end of the movie astutely observes that the defense (coached by her father) “Ain’t doing nothing against that shotgun.” This prompts her father to demand that his team “blitz all night. If they cross that line of scrimmage, I’m going to take every last one of you out. You make sure they remember, forever, the night they played the Titans.” While Sheryl is clearly the catalyst for this strategic and motivational half-time speech, I actually think her shining moment occurs much earlier in the film when she endorses head coach Herman Boone’s tough training camp. He chides, “well I’m very happy to have the approval of a five-year-old.” She retorts, “I’m 9 and a half thank you very much!” Boone then appeals to her father and suggests that he get her some dolls to play with. He responds with a hint of resignation, “I tried…she loves football.” Sure enough, if he had forced her to play with dolls and forfeit her interest in football, the team most likely would have lost in the state championship game. But the more important point here is the irony that Herman Boone himself was initially deemed unfit to be the head coach of the Titans because he is black. Just as men attempted to stifle Sheryl’s interest in football purely based on her gender, whites similarly attempted to quash Herman Boone’s head coaching opportunity purely based on his race. But Herman Boone nevertheless successfully supplants a white head coach with a clear track record of success and support of the white community. He does so not by shunning him, but instead by bringing him along for the ride as the assistant coach and defensive coordinator.

Ultimately, that inclusive act motivates the white and black players of this newly integrated high school to come together as friends, teammates, and equal partners catapulting the team to an undefeated season and state championship. But it’s worth remembering that no matter the outcome, the film’s message of racial and gender inclusion must win out.

Ben Kassoy

1 week

Thanks so much for such an insightful, eloquent, and thorough(!) response — and thanks also for your patience on mine. So much to respond to here, but I was mainly struck by this:

“Just as men attempted to stifle Sheryl’s interest in football purely based on her gender, whites similarly attempted to quash Herman Boone’s head coaching opportunity purely based on his race. But Herman Boone nevertheless successfully supplants a white head coach with a clear track record of success and support of the white community. He does so not by shunning him, but instead by bringing him along for the ride as the assistant coach and defensive coordinator.”

First of all, great call on Sheryl and “Remember the Titans” in the first place — I completely overlooked that, and you make an excellent point. The second great point, above, is the parallel of Sheryl’s being written off on account of her gender (and age, too) plus Boone’s being written off as account of race. Just as the town, the team, the assistant coaches learn valuable lessons from Boone, Boone (more subtly) learns a valuable lesson from Sheryl. It really speaks to the intersectionality of all this; beyond race and gender, in your comment you also call out body type: the forces that oppress one group are the exact forces that oppress all others. The source of racism, sexism, ableism, fatphobia, ageism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, etc. are all the same, and I’m glad that a group of straight cis white guys can have this conversation (even in the context of a silly post about old movies). After all, it is our responsibility.